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Salad

Chow Chow

A pickled relish made with cabbage, tomatoes, onions, mustard, ginger, cloves, turmeric, sugar, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and turmeric match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,776 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Chow Chow

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix all ingredients well in a large pot.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil and let it boil for 20 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and allow to cool before bottling.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + turmerictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cabbage + mustardtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Clove + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cabbage
Forms the bulk of the relish, providing crisp texture that holds up during simmering.
Tomatoes
Add moisture and body, breaking down into the sauce as the relish cooks.
Onions
Contribute savory depth and aroma that develops as they soften during cooking.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the relish and gives it its tangy flavour.
Sugar
Balances the acidity of the vinegar and adds sweetness to the relish.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that mellows somewhat during cooking.

The step that matters

Boiling for 20 minutes. The boil must be sustained so the vegetables soften and the flavours blend, and the vinegar's acidity works to keep the relish safe to store. Cooling fully before bottling prevents condensation that could affect keeping quality.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cabbage, onion, mustard, ginger, clove, turmeric, sugar):

  1. Horseradishfits better
  2. Broccolifits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cabbage, onion, mustard, ginger, clove, turmeric, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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